In 1823, a wealthy nabob by the name of the Honourable Basil Cochrane petitioned the House of Commons, complaining of his treatment by the Victualling Board and praying that the House would immediately instigate an enquiry into the Board and ‘the hardships sustained by public accountants’ resulting from its conduct. Cochrane had been a vocal critic of the Board since his return from India in 1807 and had already published a series of lengthy broadsides setting out his case against it. Perhaps he had overplayed his hand, for it was intimated to him by ‘friends’ he chose not to name that he should not petition the House again on the subject, and instead he published a further ‘exposé’ in an attempt to create support for an enquiry. This was not to happen, and he died two years later at his grand house in the fashionable district of Portman Square, at the age of seventy-three. Cochrane's complaint against the Victualling Board related to his service as Contractor and Agent Victualler in the East Indies between 1792 and 1806. He was the third contractor there, and he, along with his brother and Commodore, later Vice-Admiral, Peter Rainier, Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies between 1794 and 1806, had largely established the system of victualling which prevailed until the end of the wars. The case of the East Indies is an interesting one, and it illustrates two key themes of this book. Firstly, an unusually large amount of surviving documentation, much of it generated by the contractor himself, allows us to examine the career of a major overseas contractor in detail. Secondly, it allows us to look in depth at the interaction of public service and private interests, albeit in the unique and difficult circumstances of the East Indies station.

The East Indies was the most remote station on which the Royal Navy maintained a permanent presence throughout the wars of 1793–1815. Its main summer base, at Madras, was a minimum of four months’ sailing from England and usually nearer to six, and even messages sent overland via Constantinople and through Asia Minor took three months when the route was open which, thanks to piracy and political instability, was not always.